please empty your brain below

I've only read the first two sentences and I know I'm going to LOVE this post.
We've recently started getting milk delivered. It's great, other than that we're quite late on the milkman's round and he doesn't usually get to us until 9.

(Parker Dairies deliver as far as Bow, you know. They've got online ordering, but no app yet...
For proper bird-proof-ness, leave an empty yogurt pot out for the milko to pop in top of the newly delivered bottle.
martin - The birds don't pick the tops anymore, at least they don't round this way. I think they've lost the collective knowledge. Perhaps if milko really catches on . . .
In the 1950's everyone had the milkman call. He would bring fresh milk every day except Sunday, using a battery powered electric cart.

Three days a week another trader would bring fresh vegetables delivered from a horse drawn cart.
And the horses digestive systems waste provided fertiliser for rose beds or allotment!.

A bread van would call twice a week.

Convenient and environmentally friendly back then.
I had a similarly great idea the other day. It was to replace all the DPD, UPS, Yodel, Amazon etc vans buzzing around with one daily delivery service that consolidated parcels from everyone and just made one delivery to each door.

Yep, I invented the Royal Mail.

But seriously, if they ran this with each depot being contracted out on tender, it could be as successful [sic] as the Train Operating Companies are!
Presumably milko subscribe to the fashionable new self-employed model of employment for their milkomen?! Giving them the ultimate in flexible working just as long as they commit to the minimum of 6 3am-9am shifts per week and, of course, exclusively lease their milkofloat through milko Transport Solutions (of Luxembourg) Ltd.?
Strange! ...just reading a 2008 DG post about Coventry Motor Museum (prior to visiting the city later this week), I found the following comment:

"Ah yes, the "old" electric milk float. I guess it's all a matter of perception. I remember when the excitingly modern electric milk float superseded the horse down our street."

Great Aunt Annie | 21.04.08 - 10:31 p.m.
Electric vehicles running on routes all over London? Specially trained drivers providing a vital service for Londoners? It needs a video - 'Secrets Of The Milk Round'. Please mention it to GM next time he pops in for a cuppa.
Nah, it'll never catch on.
When did the milk round disappear? 1980s?Sadly milk delivered by the milkman costs about three times the equivalent from a supermarket. They also deliver, and not just in the mornings.
I prefer Milkify.
I remember the days when this was done without the app. It was a strict rule in our household never to change the order as the milkman always calculated the bill incorrectly - and always in his favour.

Still at least the milk always arrived come rain, shine, hail or snow. So enamoured with this was I that I signed up with our local service. It was a lot more expensive but I thought at least we would always have our milk. Then when we got a little bit of snow - the one time we actually really wanted the service - they didn't deliver for a week.

More seriously, I would never use milk delivery again. The milk would often be left in bright sunlight and not in the available shade which means it goes off quicker and it kills the vitamin D benefit. By law, every milk float must be fitted with blinds to protect the milk from direct sunlight yet I have never once seen them used.
"When did the milk round disappear?"
Still exists out in Zone 5. Possibly even closer in. It's more that the price is utterly absurd when there's a convenience store within a 5 minute walk.
I did not mention that in the 1950's most people did not have a refrigerator and storing milk over a few days in the summer was difficult, so fresh milk each morning was more important back then
I think it was only dairies that sold milk. There would be a dairy shop in many towns, often the same company as providing the delivery service.

There were no such things as large supermarkets. I seem to recall that the dairy industry was not happy when supermarkets started selling milk.

Some food items were still rationed.

Few people had cars.
Growing up in suburban London in the 1950's the Express Dairies milk float was a common sight.
I remember thinking back then it was the ideal job.
My parents have had continuous milk delivery since they moved into their house in the borough of Barnet 56 years ago!
Not sure the last time I actually saw a milk float, our milkman switched over to a van many years ago, the three local 'dairy depots' that dispatched milk floats closed a good 20-25 years ago, one site is now a supermarket, another is occupied by a storage company, the third is now offices.

Of course had the internet been invented earlier things might now be different, then again, maybe not.
Alas, Milko would fall foul of the latest diktat from head office for TfL minions: no more personal deliveries to work addresses to cut down on traffic congestion.
Mike the Milkman delivers to us - Chz (9.23am)and this is in Zone 4! and no, we're not Cornish Cockney's parents (11.03am).
Zone 3 anyone?
REB
Another brilliant DG article that cleverly makes so many good points. As an aside, let's hope that the current concerns about diesel will mean we'll also see the return of smooth, quiet, non-polluting trolleybuses and more widespread use of trams.

By 2012 the milkman only called on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday using a diesel vehicle around 2am, so milk didn't stay fresh for long. However, I was reluctant to end a long tradition so I thought 'use it or lose it, every little helps’. There was also the vague self-preservation hope that milk not taken in might raise the alarm if some catastrophe had befallen me.

However any such reassurance was rudely shattered during a holiday in Australia; imagine my embarrassment and annoyance when my neighbours emailed that they had been awoken by the police at 4:30am some twelve days later, after the milkman had left the fifth unwanted pint and finally noticed that the other four were now definitely off...

I didn’t refuse to pay, but I queried the bill because I knew my cancellation note had been read. But because I’d dared to query the bill, the milkman said he would no longer deliver.

Sadly, it’s been supermarket milk ever since.
about 30 years back our local milkman had to have steel grills fitted which he would padlock shut before venturing off into one particular large block of flats, because otherwise the contents of his float would magically disappear when his back was turned

milk deliveries to your beloved newly built blocks of flats in Bow could be similarly problematic

btw DG, why the mention of cartons of milk ... rarely see them these days
I get my milk delivered - the milkman still exists in Zone 2 as well.
However he (well, Muller Dairies) does indeed have a website (milkandmore.co.uk) and blimmin' convenient it is too.
Caz,

The final straw for me was their insistence I pay by direct debit rather than have the bill automatically added to my credit card monthly which at least gave me the opportunity to query it before paying. The credit card option did not then involve a transaction fee.

I was not prepared to agree to direct debit so asked to cancel the service. The problem was that I had outstanding money owning. So they said I could pay that with my credit card. They then subsequently claimed I had outstanding money owing as I had not paid the credit card transaction fee!
Our milkman (his name was John) would have been thrilled to be offered a 6 day week. As it was he worked every day bar none. If he was ill, the foreman did it.

Our wedding was timed for 2 p.m. so that my bride's uncle (a self-employed milkman working 180 miles away) could get there after that day's round and still get back to do the next day's round.

I still remember the sign in the milk float, which read "Do not exceed 20 m.p.h. down hill, as the motor is liable to burst and overturn the vehicle".
Milk?...we talking about cow milk? That for the cows right. What a silly idea giving cow milk to humans.
A great idea!
Another innovation could be PostBx - a way to send actual physical letters.
Am I the only one thinking some of the newer articles are close to being advertisements? (The Ginopolis one looks alarmingly like one as well)
Side note: Some of the less happy experience from the fellows suggests that the milk delivery industry is suffering so much that they have gone corrupt and started cheating money from customers.
As you can imagine I had co-op milk until it closed down due to lack of profitability. That the service couldn't make money even without offering credit (you prepaid by buying tokens) shows what a precarious business it is. Co-op bread rounds went long before as a conscious decision as it was unsustainable for the price.
Zone 3, Maze Hill and we get milk delivered 3 days a week, through milkandmore.co.uk Gets to us 5amish.

Nothing alse tastes quite as good as full fat milk straight from the bottle.
My parents had milk delivered til quite late on in the 2000s - it was the cutting of the rounds so that they only delivered 3 days a week, coupled with an increasingly uncompetitive price point that persuaded them to buy their own from the shop.
I'm in Zone 4 and get milk at 81p per pint 3 days per week from milkandmore.co.uk (actually Müller). Useful for the other sundries sold, like garden compost, which is problematic for the car-free...
I manage my account online and never see my milkman.
Unfortunately we had to give up on the milk delivery service because I'd leave for work and school runs etc at 8:15 and they never managed to get it to the door before 9am. Then the bottles would sit outside in the blazing sun for 9 hours until we got home.

I get it sent to my Amazon locker instead now.
>>Sadly milk delivered by the milkman costs about three times the equivalent from a supermarket

Remind me again how some supermarkets are paying their suppliers so little for said milk the milk producers are struggling to make any profit...
Remind me again who forces milk producers to sell milk to supermarkets?
Milk producers, being bovine, do not get the choice. The caregivers to the milk producers may have some theoretical choice, but is there any evidence that anyone is offering to pay them any more than the supermarkets do?

Most other countries consider UHT as the normal way to preserve milk ("lait frais" - other languages are available - is a premium product), but UK folk seem to have a race memory of the peculiar taste UHT milk once had, and avoid it except for an emergency carton in the cupboard, which tends to be just out-of-date when you want it.
And for premium subscribers, a red-headed baby is an optional extra!
And another idea - a man with an ecological friendly cart drawn by a horse to call round and take away unwanted items free of charge, saving you the trouble of visiting the council tip. If you have a shovel handy there is also the benefit of free garden fertiliser, if you get to the middle of the road before your neighbour does.
As Meatloaf would sing...you took the words right out of my mouth. At the tender age of 18 I started with the Express Dairy at West Hampstead, opposite the Bakerloo Tube platforms. My round was off Haverstock Hill in Hampstead. Migrated North to the depot at Northwood Hills in 1973. Then onto Wembley Depot in Alperton for the mid 70's and finally ended up at Tythe Farm underneath Fiveways Corner near Mill Hill. All the depots have long gone. I had a great time working as a milkman. Kept me fit and paid the bills. I had to work seven days a week to make any proper money. Used to fly around on a Saturday so I could get to the Arsenal in time for kick off. My nickname was TA...Tear Arse!
When I returned from living in Asia for 10 years, one of the simple pleasures I looked forward to back in Blighty was getting milk delivered to the door.

Sadly, it was delivered too late and was hugely more expensive than what was available in three shops within five minutes walk.
As a youngster used to sometimes help the Express milkman Harry out on a Saturday in the late 60s/early 70s . He was a lovely guy who had a stutter caused by being a heavy gunner in WW2.

He wore fingerless gloves and had a thick heavy leather satchel money bag. Saturday was bill day and all customers got left double orders as Im sure there was no delivery on Sunday.

Gold top , silver top, sterilised (which came in a taller bottle) where the main items . Very rarely was a yogurt ordered.

Other delivery rounds were lemonade,eggs, potatoes and green grocers. Must have been the golden age of to your door !
Don't forget to order your 'KEEP CALM and LOVE MILKO' posters, mugs and T-shirts from the legendary DG Gift Shop.

You can even get your very own Satisfaction Guaranteed personalised candle delivered in a sturdy plain white box...
Sterilized milk/UHT milk, I do remember there being a taller slimmer bottle - it had a metal cap (was it green?) like a beer bottle instead of a foil top.

Quick check on the internet and the tops are gold - but that's the human memory for you.
Anyone remember the marketing campaign by Unigate dairies in the 70's "Watch out, watch out – there's a Humphrey about!"
I had this great idea to save carrying round all those bits of plastic we have to have to buy things. It is a systems of tokens with fixed values, with the great advantage that if your wallet gets stolen you only lose the value of the tokens in it, you can't potentially have your bank account stripped out. I was going to call it Credit Automatic Systems Handling...
With all this 50s nostalgia, you wonder what else might be re-introduced. Grammar schools and secondary moderns, perhaps? History syllabuses which peter out around 1820? Casual labour?
Trains being driven by "volunteers" during a strike? Hop-picking "holidays"? The possibilities are endless.
The odd thing was that sterilised milk ("steri") was an exotic special choice in London, but it was the default in Hull, for some reason. Don't know about other areas.

Some wonderful anecdotes and memories in the comments here, which almost (but not quite) overshadow DG's brilliant post, which does his usual trick of being part serious, part send-up, and you don't quite know which bits are which.
@RogerB: C.A.S.H would never catch on. The gubbermint and GCHQ wouldn't like it (no more snooping on your purchases and buying habits) HMRC wouldn't like it (tax evasion), the banks wouldn't like it (no cut on every transaction, and you could keep the tokens under the mattress to avoid their negative interest rates).
My grandmother,who of course didn't have a fridge,always used sterilised milk,even though she lived two doors from the dairy's local shop. As children ,we found the taste repugnant and politely refused the offer of a cup of warm milk. Yuk! I can taste it now.
My father referred to sterilised milk as paralysed milk and wouldn't have it,so if we ran out of milk for his cuppa,one of us children had to 'run an errand' to the local grocer's shop.
I had a milkman in zone 3 until I moved out of London last year. He also delivered a variety of things including peat free compost!

Yes the milk is more expensive but that's what you get for doorstep delivery. Besides if you play it right, you can save a fortune.

Prior to getting my milk delivered i would do a weekly supermarket shop cos, well, I always needed milk. After delivery I could reduce that down to fortnightly.

Totting up my supermarket bills I found I was spending SEVENTY POUNDS a month less. The milk was about twelve pounds. It was a huge saving and whatever it was I wasn't buying, I didn't miss.

It just goes to show how successful supermarkets​ are at getting you to spend. And they rely on you visiting regularly to make you spend more. Hence why milk is cheap. It gets you in the door on a regular basis.

Unless you have your milk delivered anyway.
I passed an electric milk float at Greengate, Plaistow at 1915hrs last night. First I have seen in years. Spooky. His load was a number of cardboard cartons, probably containing about a gallon each. No branding on the outside, and it was white.
"but UK folk seem to have a race memory of the peculiar taste UHT milk once had"

And still does. My wife is French and says she can't taste the difference, but I sure as hell can. *Especially* in tea. It's fairly acceptable for other uses, but UHT in tea is criminal.
@Jona26 YES! I remember having Humphrey stickers ( I think one was in the shape of a big H made out of stripey straws) and a red and white striped Humphrey straw - all probably given away in packets of cereal, like most of our treasures were in those days!
UHT is OK. Doesn't taste as good as pasteurised, but it's acceptable as a trade off for not having to refrigerate it when, say, camping. Now the one that I remember from my youth is sterilised. It came in a wine-bottle with a crown cap on it. Only ever any good drunk as is or poured over breakfast cereal. Disgusting in tea, I have to admit, but then you have the pasteurised for that.
Patrickov - Yes, they do look like advertisements. That's because they're parodies of advertisements.
I'd never heard of sterilised milk until I came to live in London in the 1970s. The corner shop offered a choice of "sterilised" or "cows'" milk.

I often wondered where they thought the sterilised milk came from.










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